Physical Beauty

This mask of the human face is based on the Golden Ratio. The proportions of the length of the nose, the position of the eyes and the length
of the chin, all conform to some aspect of the Golden Ratio.

When placed over the photo of Jessica Simpson, we see there is a good fit (that is, the proportions of her face fit the geometrically "nice"
proportions of the mask, based on the Golden Ratio).

Her beauty is mathematical!

You can play with this concept in the following interactive.

Math of Beauty Interactive

In the following activity, you can check out the "mathematical beauty" (or not) of some famous people, or anyone you like.

Choose a mask, depending on whether the person is smiling or not, and line up the mask with the photo by dragging the mask. You can re-size the mask by dragging the bottom right corner, or the handles.

You can change the colour of the mask for better viewing.

You can use any picture on the Web. Just copy its URL (address) and paste it in the box. Click "Use my photo" and it should work.

The Golden Ratio also occurs in nature, in the patterns we see in sunflowers, pine cones and so on. This is largely because one of the best ways
to efficiently pack things tightly together is using the Fibonacci sequence.